Cairo Criminal Court refused the appeal case of a police officer accused of killing a worker in July. The non-commissioned police officer is scheduled to remain in detention for 45 days.
The defendant’s lawyer argued that the prosecution’s allegation that the victim died in a police vehicle has not been proven.
The police officer, who is stationed at the Al-Salam police station, is accused by the prosecution of torturing to death a worker named Khaled Tawfiq.
Preliminary investigations revealed that a Saudi tourist bribed a group of officers to bully Tawfiq. The officers allegedly kidnapped him, tortured him until he died, and then left his body near a Maadi hospital.
The Ministry of Interior, however, has solicited the narrative that the tourist filed a report against the victim at the police station. They argue that Tawfik was indeed interrogated by the police, but was later released.
The ministry argues that the body was found in the street.
The victim allegedly blackmailed the Saudi tourist using leaked nude videos of him. However, the Saudi tourist was briefly detained by the police and later released without any charges
There have been several cases of people dying in police custody over the past week, which has sparked anger among the general public, prompting police officials to describe such incidents as “isolated incidents” or “individual acts”.
In the same month when Tawfiq was killed, 99 people were killed by security forces, according to a report issued by El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence.
Police violence was one of the reasons leading to the major agitations that fueled the 25 January revolution.
The Egyptian parliament rarely discusses police violence in its sessions. The only time members of the post-revolutionary parliament discussed police abuse was when a member became involved in an argument while she intervened to have her relative acquitted from a police station where he was accuse of assault.
